San Diego City Council President Todd Gloria and others are pledging to live for one week on what amounts to minimum wages at $9 an hour.

Their goal is to draw attention to the difficulties of making do on bare minimum income, with the residual hoped-for effect of persuading people not to sign the referendum petitions to repeal San Diego’s recently approved higher minimum wage.

The ordinance championed by Gloria raises the city’s minimum wage to $11.50 in three stages by 2017.

In July, members of Congress, governors and other advocates pushing for a federal wage boost lived on the minimum wage and told of their experiences eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, riding public transportation and other things they don’t normally do.

Gloria says that after expenses for taxes and housing, the average minimum-wage worker has $51 remaining per week for food, transportation and other basics.

The San Diego Democrat says it won’t be easy, even though he’s known even by his constituents to be “a pretty frugal guy,” as Gloria told KUSI on Wednesday.

Teaming up with the minium-wage advocacy group “Raise Up San Diego,” Gloria and other participants will be tweeting and blogging their experiences.

The council president also threw down the “Live the Wage” challenge to two major proponents of the referendum: Mayor Kevin Faulconer and former Mayor Jerry Sanders, now president and CEO of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Doubtful they’ll be takers, but if so, Gloria surely will have peanut butter sandwiches waiting for them.